“That’s right,” Casey nodded agreeably. “Up to this point, you, like many of your colleagues, have not concerned yourself with the eventual result of your research. Beginning now, you do. Professor, or we kill you. You have one week to decide.”

“The Government will protect me.”

Casey shook his head. “No, Professor. Only for a time, even though they devote the efforts of a hundred security police. Throughout history, a really devoted group, given sufficient numbers and resources, could always successfully assassinate any person, in time.”

“That was the past,” the professor said, unconvinced. “Today, they can protect me.”

Casey was still shaking his head. “Let me show you just one tool of our trade.” He took up his camera and removed the back. “See this little device? It’s a small, spring-powered gun which projects a tiny, tiny hypodermic needle through the supposed lens of this dummy camera. So tiny is the dart that when it imbeds itself in your neck, hand, or belly, you feel no more than a mosquito bite.”

The professor was motivated more by curiosity than fear. He bent forward to look at the device. “Amazing,” he said. “And you have successfully used it?”

“Other operatives of our organization have. There are few, politicians in particular, who can escape the news photographer. This camera is but one of our items of equipment, and with it an assassin has little trouble getting near his victim.”

The professor shook his head in all but admiration. “Amazing,” he repeated. “I shall never feel safe with a photographer again.”

Warren Casey said, “You have no need for fear, Professor, if you abandon your current research.”

Leonard LaVaux said, “And I have a week to decide? Very well, in a week’s time I shall issue notice to the Press either that I have given up my research, or that I have been threatened by the Pacifists and demand protection.”